History shows home teams absolutely own the divisional round

In the regular season, playing at home is a big advantage. In the postseason, it’s an even greater edge.

The Los Angeles Rams will be playing in front of their home crowd on Saturday night against the Dallas Cowboys with the Coliseum expected to be packed in primetime. A win and the Rams move onto the conference championship where they’ll either host another home game against the Eagles or travel to New Orleans for a rematch with the Saints.

If history is any indicator of what home-field advantage means in the divisional round, the Rams are in great shape. In playoff history, home teams are a whopping 152-62 in the divisional round. That’s a winning percentage of .710.

In the wild-card round, home teams still have a better winning percentage than teams on the road, going 90-56 (.616), but it’s not nearly as big of a gap as the second round. The same goes for the conference championship where home teams are 94-46 (.671).

So what’s the reasoning behind this massive gap between home and away teams in the divisional round? Well, part of it has to do with the seeding differential. In the wild-card round, the matchups are 4 vs. 5 and 3 vs. 6. In the divisional round, you’re guaranteed to get the first and second seeds facing lower levels of competition.

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For instance, the top-seeded Saints are hosting the sixth-seeded Eagles thanks to their upset over the Bears. That’s a favorable matchup for New Orleans, especially at home. The same goes for the Chiefs in the AFC, who are hosting the No. 6 seed, Indianapolis.

For that reason alone, the divisional round presents much better matchups for the home teams than the wild card or conference championships. Under the current format, it’s always the two best teams in each conference playing at home.

As for the Rams specifically, they’ve been phenomenal at home in the second round. They’re 7-2 all-time in such games with those seven wins being the eighth-most of any franchise. By comparison, the Rams are 0-2 at home in the wild-card round and 4-4 in the conference championship.

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